September 2002 ISBN 0-921870-99-X BISAC:  POE005000 6 X 9 104 pp $13.95 pb Poetry, Women's Studies

Laura Lush's new collection of poems is nature poetry at its strongest and most insightful, the images connecting to give voice to our many uncertainties as we creep further into an already darkening twenty-first century. With an unwavering eye, Lush focuses on the spiritual tenacity needed to make our way through difficult times. Her sharply drawn images make us aware that winter braces the soul, enlivening the instinct for life - as we turn to face the cold wintry blast. "Winter," she says, "teaches us to love the long / liturgies of ice, the sudden stopping of water / before the black flock of birds / lifts blindly off the pond." For Lush, to understand nature is to know how to die and, therefore, to live. As she says:

Spring will eventually get here 
as certain as the deer fight 
their way out of winter 
with each shining breath bud.

With arresting perceptions, Lush lays bare the complexities involved in love between the sexes and between family members, revealing the compromises involved in the strongest of loves, and never settling for anything less than total honesty. Yet it is honesty that never verges on the cynical but moves the reader into a world seen clearly and intelligibly so as to reveal the wisdom that one gains from pain.

"In The First Day of Winter, Lush writes about mothers and sisters, sexual love and loss with arresting perceptions and language both sensuous and witty." - Richard Lemm

Laura Lush, known for her highly imagistic and lyrical poetry, lives and teaches in Toronto. She has published two previous collections of poems: Hometown, which was nominated for the 1992 Governor General's Award for Poetry, and Fault Line (1997). Poems from The First Day of Winter earned her second place in this year's CBC Literary Contest. Her first collection of fiction, Going to the Zoo, will be published by Turnstone Press this autumn.